Cosmic Castaway
by AnEmOnE2
Summary: Two brothers trudge alone, lost to a desert planet. Before the Stampede, before the Typhoon, when twins struggled with the other's vision on the world...the travels of clashing brothers, wandering without the truest of destinations. song fic, Vash's POV.


A Trigun song fic...timed when Vash and Knives were still traveling the desert planet together, before they split up and before Knives constructed their guns. "Cosmic Castaway" by Electrasy. In Vash's POV, and since he's supposed to be a genius, I used a lot of big words and deep descriptions in his thoughts...he can be a sensitive thinker, even though he may act like an idiot in public to throw off the bounty hunters and authorities. I saw this song suit him well, in the very least for the given situation in the plot...we never get the clearest picture of how Vash and Knives interract with each other during their travels before they separate, and I figured Vash would probably be strugging with himself and memories of Rem while trailing along after Knives for over a century...he may seem a little OOC at first, but I think he starts getting to his signature idealism towards the middle and end. Don't flame me, please it's my first attempt at a Trigun fiction, and at the same time my first attempt at a song fic...*cowers nervously in the corner in preparation for potention flames* Don't hurt me!! I'm really sensitive!! *long pause* Right. Enjoy!  
  
*a/n: The parts of the story and the parts of the lyrics with the same number simply means that those parts relate to each other...ex: both part 2's go together*  
  
Cosmic Castaway  
  
(1)"Come now, brother...quicken the pace, you don't wish to be left behind..." he sneered calmly, leading me through the vast, spanning desert. His eyes burned ice blue against stinging black pupils as he eyed me with half-disgust, half-hope...hope that I may someday drop my idealism and join him in his own beliefs...even now, after one-hundred and two years, even now he didn't understand me...he didn't understand my hate of death...and my love for the human race.  
  
I hated him...just looking at him welled within me a severe loathing, a sensation so hard-core it was incurable. Knives...the murderer of my dearest and closest friend...  
  
'Rem...' my thoughts rang as I reminisced back to the days in travel...back when the crew was still alive, still happy, and untainted with the evils Knives plagued them with...Knives, Knives and his deep contemplations, riddling Rem's teachings to suit his own style...his beliefs and countering arguments had cursed upon them evil...sure, I knew well all humans were flawed, that they weren't perfect...I knew they had all possessed some vile traits...but, so did we.  
  
Knives refused to even consider the fact that we, too, were imperfect...he believed himself to be godlike in the comparison to a human. His arguments didn't compute for me...I just didn't understand where it all came from, all the hate and negativity he held...and all the hate and negativity he caused me to spawn against him. My brain felt as though it would implode, trying to understand him.  
  
Sometimes, while in travel with my only companion, the only person I hated with such a vigorous vengeance, I just felt as though if my head were to implode, it would be alright...I wouldn't have to deal with him...the killer of my childhood...the killer of my friends...the killer of Rem.  
  
But then I would remember...suicide always held an accidic place in my mind...to even consider it seemed corrosive...it was vile, and pathetic, a desperate and over-easy escape...Rem wouldn't want me to do that...she'd want me to be strong...she'd want me to live, despite Knives's presence and his negative ideas against humanity. What to do? Why do I follow him? Why can't I think straight?! What is wrong with me?! I just want to die...but, I want to live, too...what can I do?!  
  
  
  
(1)Lose my head to the chemical freeway  
  
Comin' up on overload  
  
In a mystic new dimension  
  
Purify and Sanctify me  
  
What, so I'm in no end game  
  
Move my piece right off the board  
  
Losing sure is easy so I am no more  
  
  
  
(2)Nightly I lock my eyes to the sky...as my souless twin sleeps, I scan the void of darkness surrounding me...I'm not completely torn by his beliefs...morally, I am...mentally, I am...but I've thousands of times considered plowing a rock to his head, and severing his life short...killing the unwanted and unpure, is that not what he himself lives by?  
  
But I'm stronger than that. I can't give in to what he preaches...I can't allow myself to sink to his level...to murder...to kill...to end a life, even a life as corrupted and incurable as his.  
  
I dream of better things...I dream of no confusion, of no hatred...I don't hate everything...just him. Him and his beliefs and ideas. Knives...I dreamed of being rid of him, though at the same time, in those very dreams, he was never dead...he just, wasn't Knives...not the murderous, anti-human brother of mine...he was still Knives...but at the same time, I was rid of the corrupted version, and left with a matured mirror of his child-like self, the one who would comfort me when I cried, the one who would reassure me we would fit in with humans. This Knives was the exact opposite, and I hated him for changing into what he is now.  
  
He always saw me as a child, a helpless, vulnerable piece of flesh who couldn't make it on his own terms...which is exactly why he allowed me to trail along with him, even though he knew I hated him...he wanted me to be his equal...to be his ally...to once again be his brother...but until the day would come to pass that I would abandon my vision of idealism, he would continue seeing me as a fragile child, an outcast that only he could fend for...I was nothing more than an outcast.  
  
  
  
(2)But I'm not broken  
  
In my dream, I win  
  
In here I'm nothin'  
  
A cosmic castaway  
  
  
  
(3)I knew I was idealistic...I knew that my lifestyle was practically impossible to harness and tame...but I had to try...I wasn't going to strip myself of a conscience as Knives had...I was going to abide by what Rem had taught me...killing was wrong...suicide was wrong...to prevent a death was worthy of time and effort no matter what the circumstances.  
  
Knives wanted me to be like him...to not see murder as such a bad thing, but rather as a controlling manner of assistance. I would exellerate my thoughts to beyond comprehension, to tune out his ramblings about the rewards and positive outcomes of slaying the useless...I refused to give in, despite the fact that I gave him over a century of my time...to give in to his seemingly purifying antics would only murder everything I am, every belief I've come to possess...to give up to his means of living was simply a mental suicide.  
  
Listening to him whittled away at me, corrosed at my ideas on life...he would eventually corrupt me, digging into me with his dagger words soaked in persuasion. I couldn't stand it...he was tainting my mind, or at least attempting to...he lacked in sympathy, he didn't respect the fact that I just despised his methods...almost as much as him...he didn't understand that he was poisoning me with his every lecture on the difference between idealism and reality, the difference between my wants in life and his own. Dying would be better than listening to his ingraining words, than fighting his attempts...but the thought of death would only flash across my mind with a speed of a bullet before I realized that suicide was one of my greatest enemies.   
  
  
  
(3)In my head I'm a chemical dreamer  
  
Speed up to burn-out mode  
  
Comin' up to the fifth dimension  
  
Beautify don't crucify me  
  
Yeah, so I need no mind game poisoning my lonely soul  
  
Losing sure is easy so I am no more  
  
  
  
(4)I perservered...I wasn't going to let his persuasive tone ease me to his side, to his approval...I wasn't about to cave, to let myself rot from the inside out...I was stronger than that...I would win every argument by cutting his words short...and I did so, by humming.  
  
I would grit my teeth and irritate him by out-sounding his voice with Rem's favorite song.  
  
Knives despised Rem, and in turn he loathed her signature tune...I would counter his corrosive words with a light-hearted song, and smirk despite myself when he would shrink back and ignore me for an hour's time, an hour to forget the other's presence, and merely walk on, in no specific direction, with no specific care. I would take over the situation, because I knew how to get under his skin, how to burrow deep and itch him in such a way that he was forced to ignore me and shut up.  
  
Nightly I was cursed with terrors, just after I would ease from my staring into the sky into an attempted slumber...flashes back to my past...our past...our childhoods...when we were actually friends, before we developed clashing senses of righteousness. I would jerk to consciousness with cold sweat running down my spine, after seeing violent visions of the ships exploding...of our friends going insane with jealousy and regret...of death...of blood...of Rem, tears streaking her gentle face as she parted from me forever. In all our years of forcing ourselves to stomach the other's presence, Knives had managed to corrupt me in a sense...he branded me with constant nightmares.  
  
I'm completely warped in my senses...my inhuman abilities run haywire as my frazzled mind racks from the horror of the passing dreams...he completely thrashed me from the inside...I'll never be okay...I'll never be normal...those nightmares will haunt me for the rest of my life, with or without him just three yards away from me in our rest.  
  
  
  
(4)But I'm no broken  
  
In my dream I win  
  
And I take over  
  
Cuz I'm no loser  
  
And I'm in and you're not  
  
Bad dreams don't stop  
  
But I'm all screwed up  
  
A Cosmic Castaway  
  
A Cosmic Castaway  
  
A Cosmic Castaway  
  
  
  
(5)All I really want is to live my life in peace and prosperity...to be happy, and to protect the weak and defenseless...but I couldn't...I was either to continue following my corrupted brother in the never-dying hope that he would change his views to conform in agreement with my own, or I was to abandon him...  
  
For some reason, I couldn't let go...I couldn't deny the fact that he was my brother, in blood and spirit...born of the same mother, born of the same father, born of the same species...I almost couldn't stand it, the confusion...why did he have to be my brother?! I hated him...didn't I?! At least I had habitually forced myself to believe as much...he had slain the crew...he had murdered the captain...he had killed Rem. Why was it that I just couldn't bring myself to leave him?! Why was it I followed him around?!  
  
Perhaps I didn't hate him...perhaps I merely held a thriving anger...one so coarse it felt to be identical to hatred...maybe my anger and rage only pulsed within me with the same beat as loathing...was that why I couldn't leave him? Because I truly didn't hate him? How could I not? He murdered everyone I loved...including him. The Knives I once held a respect was no more, having died under the mercy of these corrupt beliefs...maybe not dead...maybe only fallen in a coma against the strength of the heavy evil racking his heart.   
  
That may be why I could never abandon him, make it on my own terms and completely strip myself of his existance with distance...because I still secretly saw him as a brother, and I didn't really hate him.  
  
But how could I not hate the man who butchered all I held dear?! How could I not possess loathing?! Was that not betraying Rem by not completely despising the very humanoid creature who killed her?!  
  
And I remember her song...and when she sang it...her spry, light voice and her bubbly, forgiving nature...her trademark kindness...how could I hate when she had taught me to love? When she had taught me to forgive?  
  
But again, he killed her! He didn't deserve forgiveness...did he? Could repentance save him? Could I forgive him? Could I ease from my anger?  
  
I felt numb against myself in this, my legs lacking in feeling as they carried me through the loose dunes spiking roundly over the ground...the endless desert, spanning forever beyond even my abnormally precise vision. No pain...my legs had stripped themselves of feeling hours into our trudge, and I felt neither tired nor energetic...I lacked in feeling as I absorbed myself in my thoughts.  
  
Rem's song then pricked to my immediate, tangible hold, and I couldn't shun it away...pain weighed my heart as I envisioned her with every blink of my eyes...with every press my lids stabbed against each other, there she was, engulfing my sights...her smile, her innocent beam...humming her favorite tune...singing it even...  
  
"...Rem..." I whispered breathlessly, my voice undetected by my headstrong brother. I felt my eyes sting in wetness and my eyes stain glassy, tears welling...I couldn't stop her song from replaying in my head...I couldn't stop her voice from stinging back to my ears...! I couldn't stop the tears. Pain...so much pain...  
  
I want Rem...I want Rem! But my wanting doesn't deliver...it never does...and I know it never will...I will never be graced with the sight her streaming navy hair, of her innocent caramel eyes...never again. I will never see her...Rem, my teacher...my mother...my dearest friend. The one to teach me of my idealistic ways...the one to raise me with love and warmth in her gentle eyes...the one to understand who I was, not what I was...the one to love me despite my lack of humanity. I will never again be blessed with her warm presence...all I have now...is Knives.  
  
Knives...I know I shouldn't be trailing along with him! I shouldn't stand idely by as he sinks deeper and deeper into his abyss of evil, spawned at an early, normally innocent age. I should be straining to change him, to persuade him to my way, in counter to his persuading of me to his...but...oh! The confusion, the pain and torment of not knowing which path to take...following Knives will only lead to my own corruption...would he not strain all the more to taint my soul in the means he lives by?! Should I leave him?! I know only one thing...I cannot kill him...not physically. Oh! But to kill the evil he has become, to release the innocence and purity that once was Knives the Plant Entity, my brother...that would only be a miracle.  
  
But to him my voice was nothing...my efforts would be wasted air, wasted breaths, wasted words. He channels me out, I would know...for the countless attempts I strained in past fights to make my bit heard...he refused to even try computing my opinions...he felt I was no more than a child, if anything, with my idealistic ways. If only he could try and understand...try to change...try to see humans as equals, not as inferiors...I saw my gifts and strengths as no more that than...he saw them as superiorities, as boosters in status, placing us at the obvious top. How could I make him understand?! What must I do?!   
  
Why did I have to be me? Why did I have to be an outcast? Both in his eyes, and in normal humans? Why? If only life would grant mercy on me...just this once...and let me be a somebody...so that he may here my words, break from his mental block against my ideas, and so I may be heard. "...Rem..." I whispered. "...give me strength...I can't be ignored any more..."  
  
  
  
(5)And I want  
  
But have not  
  
Bad dreams  
  
Lust thoughts  
  
In here with no pain  
  
Hurt, me, again  
  
And I want  
  
But have none  
  
I should beat the alien  
  
But here I'm no one  
  
A cosmic castaway  
  
A cosmic castaway  
  
A cosmic castaway  
  
A cosmic castaway  
  
  
  
The End  
  
a/n: hey...what did you think? Did you think it kind of suited Vash? I mean in comparison to both humans and Knives, if you think about it he's kind of neither...he's unlike Knives to the extreme, and he doesn't fit in with humanity. He tries to be a human man, while at the same time he's too unlike them for that to work...he's too idealistic when compared with either, so he kind of is an outcast. I figured Vash wouldn't know how to look at Knives after he killed Rem and the crew...Vash doesn't really know how to hate, so really he could just be feeling almost incurable anger towards Knives and think that's how hate feels...I think I did an okay job...what about y'all? Tell me what you think, please...go review, thanks in advance.   
  
--Mones 


End file.
